Humble Inquiry, Third Edition: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling
Humble Inquiry, Third Edition
Most leaders assume they're good communicators. What they're actually doing—most of the time—is telling. And telling, even when well-intentioned, is a subtle power move that shuts people down, withholds critical information, and quietly erodes trust.
Humble Inquiry makes the case for a different approach: asking questions you genuinely don't know the answers to, from a posture of curiosity rather than authority.
What you'll find inside this fully updated third edition:
- The ORJI cycle—why conversations go wrong in a split second, and how to interrupt the pattern
- A levels-of-relationship model to diagnose where your team is—and how to move toward real openness and trust
- Why hierarchy and “tell” culture actively undermine psychological safety—and what to do about it
- A new chapter on humble inquiry in remote and hybrid work (spoiler: it works—and may work better)
- Reader exercises, twelve mini case studies, and a discussion guide for teams
Best for: managers, leaders, coaches, healthcare professionals, and anyone navigating complex, interdependent teams. This is a mindset shift, not a script.
Foreword by Michael Bungay Stanier.
Based on Edgar H. Schein's fifty years of research at MIT. Over 300,000 copies sold.
